In most cases, Christian authors associate each miracle with specific teachings that reflect the message of Jesus.[11]

In The Miracles of Jesus, H. Van der Loos describes two main categories of miracles attributed to Jesus: those that affected people, e.g., the Blind Man of Bethsaida and are called "healings", and those that "controlled nature", e.g., Walking on Water. The three types of healings are cures where an ailment is cured, exorcisms where demons are cast away and the resurrection of the dead. Karl Barth said that, among these miracles, the Transfiguration of Jesus is unique in that the miracle happens to Jesus himself.[12]

According to Craig Blomberg, one characteristic shared among all miracles of Jesus in the Gospel accounts is that he delivered benefits freely and never requested or accepted any form of payment for his healing miracles, unlike some high priests of his time who charged those who were healed.[13] In Matthew 10:8 he advised his disciples to heal the sick without payment and stated: "freely ye received, freely give."[13]

The largest group of miracles mentioned in the New Testament involve cures. The Gospels give varying amounts of detail for each episode, sometimes Jesus cures simply by saying a few words, at other times employs material such as spit and mud. Generally they are referred to in the Synoptic Gospels but not in the Gospel of John.

The Mark Gospel also has an account of the healing of a man named Bartimaeus, done as Jesus is leaving Jericho.[15] The Gospel of Matthew[16] has a simpler account loosely based on this, with two unnamed blind men instead of one (this 'doubling' is a characteristic of Matthew's treatment of the Mark text) and a slightly different version of the story, taking place in Galilee, earlier in the narrative.[17] The Gospel of Luke tells the same story of Jesus healing an unnamed blind man, but moves the event in the narrative to when Jesus approaches Jericho.[18][19]

The Gospel of John describes an episode in which Jesus heals a man blind from birth , placed during the Festival of Tabernacles, about six months before his crucifixion. Jesus mixes spittle with dirt to make a mud mixture, which he then places on the man's eyes. He asks the man to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam. When the man does this, he is able to see. When asked by his disciples whether the cause of the blindness was the sins of the man's father or his mother, Jesus states that it was neither. ([9:1-12]

In an episode in the Gospel of Luke Luke 17:11-19, while on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus sends ten lepers who sought his assistance to the priests, and they were healed as they go, but the only one who comes back to thank Jesus is a Samaritan.

Healing the paralytic at Capernaum appears in Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26. The Synoptics state that a paralytic was brought to Jesus on a mat; Jesus told him to get up and walk, and the man did so. Jesus also told the man that his sins were forgiven, which irritated the Pharisees. Jesus is described as responding to the anger by asking whether it is easier to say that someone's sins are forgiven, or to tell the man to get up and walk. Mark and Luke state that Jesus was in a house at the time, and that the man had to be lowered through the roof by his friends due to the crowds blocking the door.

Healing a man with dropsy is described in Luke 14:1-6. In this miracle, Jesus cured a man with dropsy at the house of a prominent Pharisee on the Sabbath. Jesus justified the cure by asking: "If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?"

In the Healing of the man with a withered hand miracle,[22] the Synoptics state that Jesus entered a synagogue on Sabbath, and found a man with a withered hand there, whom Jesus healed, having first challenged the people present to decide what was lawful for Sabbath—to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill. The Gospel of Mark adds that this angered the Pharisees so much that they started to contemplate killing Jesus.

The Healing the deaf mute of Decapolis miracle only appears in the Gospel of Mark.[7:31-37] The Gospel states that Jesus went to the Decapolis and met a man there who was deaf and mute, and cured him. Specifically, Jesus first touched the man's ears, and touched his tongue after spitting, and then said Ephphatha!, an Aramaic word meaning Be opened.

Matthew 9:35-36 also reports that after the miracle of Jesus exorcising a mute, Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

The seven major exorcism accounts in the Synoptic Gospels which have details, and imply specific teachings, are:

Exorcism at the Synagogue in Capernaum, where Jesus exorcises an evil spirit who cries out, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!".[24]

Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac or "Miracle of the (Gadarene) Swine": Jesus exorcises a possessed man (changed in the Gospel of Matthew to two men). When Jesus asks the demon's name (finding the name of the possessing demon was an important traditional tool of exorcists),[25] he is given the reply Legion, "...for we are many". When the demons asked to be expelled into a nearby group of pigs rather than be sent out of the area, Jesus obliges, but the pigs then run into the lake and are drowned.[26]

Exorcism of the Syrophoenician woman's daughter, appears in Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7:24-30. A Gentile woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter, but Jesus refuses, saying that he has been sent only to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel". The woman persists, saying that "dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table". In response Jesus relents and informs her that her daughter has been healed.[27]

Exorcising a boy possessed by a demon, appears in Matthew 17:14-21, Mark 9:14-29, and Luke 9:37-49. A boy possessed by a demon is brought forward to Jesus. The boy is said to have foamed at the mouth, gnashed his teeth, become rigid and involuntarily fallen into both water and fire. Jesus' followers could not expel the demon, and Jesus condemns the people as unbelieving, but when the father of the boy questions if Jesus could heal the boy, he replies "everything is possible for those that believe". The father then says that he believes and the child is healed.[28]

The Young Man from Nain.[Lk 7:11-17] A young man, the son of a widow, is brought out for burial in Nain. Jesus sees her, and his pity causes him to tell her not to cry. Jesus approaches the coffin and tells the man inside to get up, and he does so.

The Raising of Lazarus.[Jn 11:1-44] A close friend of Jesus who had been dead for four days is brought back to life when Jesus commands him to get up.

The Gospels include eight pre-resurrection accounts concerning Jesus' power over nature:

Turning water into wine at a wedding, when the host runs out of wine, the host's servants fill vessels with water at Jesus' command, then a sample is drawn out and taken to the master of the banquet who pronounces the content of the vessels as the best wine of the banquet.

Feeding the multitude—Jesus, praying to God and using only a few loaves of bread and several fish, feeds thousands of men, along with an unspecified number of women and children; there are even a number of baskets of leftovers afterward.

Miracles were widely believed in around the time of Jesus. Gods and demigods such as Heracles (better known by his Roman name, Hercules), Asclepius (a Greek physician who became a god) and Isis of Egypt all were thought to have healed the sick and overcome death (i.e. have raised people from the dead).[32] Some thought that mortal men, if sufficiently famous and virtuous, could do likewise; there were myths about philosophers like Pythagoras and Empedocles calming storms at sea, chasing away pestilences, and being greeted as gods,[33] and similarly some Jews believed that Elisha the Prophet had cured lepers and restored the dead.[34] The achievements of the 1st century Apollonius of Tyana, though occurring after Jesus' life, were used by a 3rd-century opponent of the Christians to argue that Christ was neither original nor divine (Eusebius of Caesaria argued against the charge).[35]

The first Gospels were written against this background of Hellenistic and Jewish belief in miracles and other wondrous acts as signs - the term is explicitly used in the Gospel of John to describe Jesus' miracles - seen to be validating the credentials of divine wise men.[36]

Many Christians believe Jesus' miracles were historical events and that his miraculous works were an important part of his life, attesting to his divinity and the Hypostatic union, i.e., the dual natures of Jesus as God and Man.[37] They see Jesus' experiences of hunger, weariness, and death as evidences of his humanity, and miracles as evidences of his divinity.[38][39][40]

Christian authors also view the miracles of Jesus not merely as acts of power and omnipotence, but as works of love and mercy, performed not with a view to awe by omnipotence, but to show compassion for sinful and suffering humanity.[37][41] And each miracle involves specific teachings.[42]

Since according to the Gospel of John,[20:30] it was impossible to narrate all of the miracles performed by Jesus, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that the miracles presented in the Gospels were selected for a twofold reason: first for the manifestation of God's glory, and then for their evidential value. Jesus referred to his "works" as evidences of his mission and his divinity, and in John 5:36 he declared that his miracles have greater evidential value than the testimony of John the Baptist.[37]John 10:37-38 quotes Jesus as follows:[43]

"Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

In Christian teachings, the miracles were as much a vehicle for Jesus' message as his words. Many emphasize the importance of faith, for instance in Cleansing ten lepers,[Lk 17:19] Jesus did not say: "My power has saved you" but said:[44][45]

Christian authors have discussed the miracles of Jesus at length and assigned specific motives to each miracle, e.g., authors Pentecost and Danilson suggest that the Walking on Water miracle centered on the relationship of Jesus with his apostles, rather than their peril or the miracle itself. And that the miracle was specifically designed by Jesus to teach the apostles that when encountering obstacles, they need to rely on their faith in Christ, first and foremost.[47]

Authors Donahue and Harrington argue that the Daughter of Jairus miracle teaches that faith as embodied in the bleeding woman can exist in seemingly hopeless situations, and that through belief, healing can be achieved, in that when the woman is healed, Jesus tells her "Your faith has healed you".[48]

Contemporary liberal Christians may prefer to read Jesus' miracles as metaphorical narratives for understanding the power of God.[54] Not all theologians with liberal inclinations reject the possibility of miracles, but may reject the polemicism that denial or affirmation entails.[55]

The Scottish philosopher David Hume published an influential essay on miracles in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) in which he argued that any evidence for miracles was outweighed by the possibility that those who described them were deceiving themselves or others:

"As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles, than in that concerning any other matter of fact; this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution, never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered."[56]

Bart Ehrman states that what makes science possible is the assumption of the uniformity of the laws of nature, but given that miracles are by definition events that go against the usual way nature works, historians are virtually unable to confirm or refute reports of Jesus' miracles.[57]

According to the Jesus Seminar Jesus probably cured some sick people,[58] but described Jesus' healings in modern terms, relating them to "psychosomatic maladies." They found six of the nineteen healings to be "probably reliable".[59] Most participants in the Jesus Seminar believe Jesus practiced exorcisms, as Josephus, Philostratus, and others wrote about other contemporary exorcists, but do not believe the gospel accounts were accurate reports of specific events or that demons exist.[60] They did not find any of the nature miracles to be historical events.[59]

^Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible defines a miracle as "an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God." It goes on to add that a miracle occurs to show that the power behind it is not limited to the laws of matter or mind as it interrupts fixed natural laws. So the term supernatural applies quite accurately. Elwell, Walter A., ed. (2001). Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible. Baker Academic. ISBN978-0801022562.

^Ehrman, Bart D.. Jesus, Interrupted, HarperCollins, 2009. ISBN 0-06-117393-2 page 175: "We would call a miracle an event that violates the way nature always, or almost always, works ... By now I hope you can see the unavoidable problem historians have with miracles. Historians can establish only what probably happened in the past, but miracles, by their very nature, are always the least probable explanation for what happened"